I'm a big believer in using habits to encourage productivity. I tell my students who have trouble reading that they should try finding a particular chair at a particular time of day and always read for a specific amount of time, and eventually their brains will come to associate that chair with reading. I see my desk as such a place. Pretty much the only thing I do at this desk is write, so when I sit down there my brain instantly goes into creative mode.
The desk is a little cluttery at the moment. This is the one room in the house where we still haven't found a place for everything, and some of the loose stuff landed on my desk and just stayed. One of my goals for the new year is to get this desk cleaned off.
If you look closely, you may notice I have three bottles of keyboard duster. I am not an addict, I am just obsessed with cleaning my keyboard. It's how I buy time when I'm stumped on a scene.
I painted the room slate gray because it is a soothing color and will not distract me from the task at hand. Plus, pretty. It's the first thing I did before I even unpacked boxes when we moved in.
To the right is my board where I put index cards of all my loglines, story ideas and rejection letters. I used to post up index cards outlining my story, but the last two stories have been written out in treatment form. That's what's on the paper holder to the right on the desk - page two of my second outline for Nice Girls.
When I write I get a full glass of water, pull my hair back in a loose ponytail, put on sugar plum lip gloss, clean off my keyboard with duster, then hook the computer up to my speakers.
I click on ITunes, Firefox and Movie Magic. I have three primary music playlists - Action, Romance, and Writing Music. I always start with Writing Music and adjust depending on whether or not the music feels appropriate.
I check my email. I check the blogs. I check Done Deal. After that I start writing. Sometimes I leave Firefox open because inevitably I will need to look something up, and I don't really get that distracted by it because I've already checked all my stuff before I start writing.
I set myself a goal for each day, usually a choice between page count, scene completion and time. Usually it's either two solid hours of writing, complete a specific sequence, or write five pages - whichever comes first. I do not stop until I have met one of those goals. Sometimes even after I've met a goal I'll decide I can keep going. And if I didn't complete five pages the day before I make sure to push out extra pages so I can meet a long term goal on schedule.
Once I decided to develop this pattern of writing behavior it's been easy to maintain a steady writing schedule.
